JP2011060370A - Multilayer optical recording medium, optical recording medium drive device, and focus pull-in method - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a multilayer optical recording medium which allows high-speed access to a desired one of many recording layers, and to provide an optical recording medium drive device and a focus pull-in method. <P>SOLUTION: In the multilayer optical recording medium, the many recording layers configure a plurality of recording layer groups each comprising a predetermined number of recording layers, a gap layer is formed between the plurality of recording layer groups, and a distance between the plurality of recording layer groups, which corresponds to a thickness of the gap layer is made longer than a maximum interlayer distance of the predetermined number of recording layers. In a drive device having an optical system that radiates a laser light for recording or reproduction to the multilayer optical recording medium, the optical system has a spherical aberration coarse adjusting section that corrects spherical aberration by coarse adjustment in units of a plurality of recording layer groups, and a spherical aberration fine adjusting section that corrects the spherical aberration by fine adjustment in a unit of a recording layer. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2011,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a multilayer optical recording medium having a large number of recording layers, an optical recording medium drive device for the multilayer optical recording medium, and a focus pull-in method.

  In recent years, as one of means for realizing a large-capacity optical memory having a recording capacity per recording medium exceeding 1 TB (terabyte), a method of multiplexing and recording information in the thickness direction of the recording medium has been studied. These methods can be broadly classified into a method of recording with a three-dimensional arrangement of marks inside a recording medium and a method of recording multiple holograms on the entire recording medium, so-called volume hologram method. The former further includes a method in which a recording layer recorded in a spiral shape with a portion having a different refractive index or a depression as a mark (see, for example, Non-Patent Documents 1 to 3) and a spiral having a small size hologram as a mark. The recorded information surface can be classified into a multi-layered system (for example, see Non-Patent Documents 4 and 5). Further, these multilayer optical recording media can be further subdivided into several methods according to the recording principle.

  In optical recording media characterized in that the recording layers are multilayered inside these recording media, the distance from the surface of the substrate to each recording layer is different from each other, so that the resulting spherical aberration is different in each recording layer. . When spherical aberration exceeding the allowable level occurs, it is necessary to correct the spherical aberration in order to reduce recording accuracy and reproduction signal quality. For example, it is necessary to incorporate the spherical aberration correction element disclosed in Patent Document 1 in the optical path and adjust the spherical aberration correction element so that the spherical aberration is minimized in each recording layer. In addition, Blu-ray Disc (registered trademark), which has been put into practical use in recent years, has a large numerical aperture NA of 0.85, which is a slight substrate thickness error, although it has only two recording layers. Since a large spherical aberration occurs, a spherical aberration correction element is employed. In a Blu-ray Disc drive apparatus, it is common to use a beam expander consisting of a pair of lenses or a liquid crystal element as a spherical aberration correction element.

  Patent Document 1 discloses a light transmissive recording medium having a structure in which an information layer is separated by air or a member having a different refractive index, and a spherical aberration corrector. A rotating prism element (stepped flat plate), a pair of wedge prisms, and a mirror (so-called deformable mirror) that can be deformed by a piezoelectric element are illustrated as spherical aberration correctors.

  Further, in Patent Documents 2 to 5, if one type of recording interlayer distance is used, signal interference between information layers becomes extremely large and normal signal reproduction cannot be performed, so that crosstalk between recording layers of a multilayer optical recording medium is attenuated. For this purpose, a technique for defining a combination of recording interlayer distances is shown. For example, a recording medium in which the interlayer distance is not equal (see Patent Document 2), a recording medium in which the interlayer distance is combined according to a predetermined rule (see Patent Documents 4 and 5), and the interlayer distance near the center of the stacked information layers There is a recording medium (see Patent Document 3) in which the recording density is high while the distance between layers is wide at both ends of the information layer and the recording density is low.

Japanese Patent No. 2502884 JP 2001-155380 A JP 2005-251249 A JP 2006-040456 A JP 2006-059433 A

Ayumi Mitsumori, Takanobu Higuchi, Takuma Yanagisawa, Masakazu Ogasawara, Satoru Tanaka and Tetsuya Iida, "Multilayer 500 Gbyte Optical Disk", Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, 48, 03A055, (2009) Ed Walker, Alexander Dvornikov, Ken Coblentz and Peter Rentzepis, "Terabyte recorded in two-photon 3D disk", Applied Optics, 47, 22, pp.4133-4139, (2008) Andrew N. Shipway, Moshe Greenwald, Nimer Jaber, Ariel M. Litwak and Benjamin J. Reisman, "A New Medium for Two-Photon Volumetric Data Recording and Playback", Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, 45, 2B, pp.1229- 1234, (2006) Robert R. McLeod, Andrew J. Daiber, Mark E. McDonald, Timothy L. Robertson, Timothy Slagle, Sergei L. Sochava and Lambertus Hesselink, "Microholographic multilayer optical disk data storage", Applied Optics, 44, 16, pp. 3197 -3207, (2005) Hirotaka Miyamoto, Hisayuki Yamatsu, Kimihiro Saito, Norihiro Tanabe, Toshihiro Horigome, Goro Fujita, Seiji Kobayashi and Hiroshi Uchiyama, "Direct Servo Error Signal Detection Method from Recorded Micro-Reflectors", Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, 48, 03A054, (2009 )

  In a bulk type multi-layer optical recording medium having no physically independent recording layer or intermediate layer, the interlayer distance (for example, 1/10 mm to 5/100 mm) with respect to a possible crossing of the substrate thickness (about 1/10 mm to 5/100 mm) 5-10 μm) is too small, for example, it is unclear how far the target recording layer is from the surface of the substrate having a thickness of 1.2 mm, and it is difficult to predict the amount of spherical aberration generated.

  In addition, in a multilayer optical recording medium having a structure in which physically independent recording layers are stacked, intermediate layers that have been strictly crossed in advance are sequentially stacked, and the thickness crossing of the protective layer on the surface is also strict. However, since the intersection of each intermediate layer is ± several μm, the farther the recording layer is from the surface, the larger the variation in the distance from the surface to the recording layer becomes. Therefore, it is unclear how far the target recording layer is from the surface of the substrate, and it is difficult to predict the amount of spherical aberration generated. Therefore, when accessing the target recording layer, it is necessary to repeat the focus jump and spherical aberration correction many times, and it is difficult to achieve quick access.

  Therefore, the problems to be solved by the present invention include the above-mentioned drawbacks as an example, and a multilayer optical recording medium and an optical recording medium drive capable of quickly accessing a target recording layer among a large number of recording layers An object is to provide an apparatus and a focus pull-in method.

  The multilayer optical recording medium of the invention according to claim 1 is a multilayer optical recording medium having a large number of recording layers, and the numerous recording layers constitute a plurality of recording layer groups each consisting of a predetermined number of recording layers. A gap layer is formed between the plurality of recording layer groups, and the distance between the plurality of recording layer groups, which is the thickness of the gap layer, is longer than the maximum interlayer distance of the predetermined number of recording layers. It is characterized by having.

  An optical recording medium drive apparatus according to a sixth aspect of the present invention has a large number of recording layers, each of which constitutes a plurality of recording layer groups each consisting of a predetermined number of recording layers, and a gap between the plurality of recording layer groups. A laser for recording or reproduction on a multilayer optical recording medium in which a distance between the plurality of recording layer groups, which is a thickness of the gap layer, is longer than a maximum interlayer distance of the predetermined number of recording layers A drive apparatus having an optical system for irradiating light, wherein the optical system corrects spherical aberration by coarse adjustment in units of the plurality of recording layer groups, and spherical aberration is finely adjusted in units of the recording layer. Spherical aberration fine adjustment means for correcting by adjustment is provided.

  The focus pull-in method according to an eleventh aspect of the present invention has a large number of recording layers each constituting a plurality of recording layer groups each including a predetermined number of recording layers, and a gap layer is provided between the plurality of recording layer groups. The gap between the plurality of recording layer groups, which is the thickness of the gap layer formed, is set to be longer than the maximum interlayer distance of the predetermined number of recording layers. A focus pull-in method for a drive device having an irradiating optical system, wherein the focus pull-in to each of the plurality of recording layer groups is performed only by a coarse spherical aberration adjusting means, and the focus to the recording layers in the plurality of recording layer groups is performed. After the jump, the spherical aberration fine adjustment means is used to optimally correct the spherical aberration.

  According to the multilayer optical recording medium of the first aspect of the present invention, a gap layer is formed between a plurality of recording layer groups composed of a predetermined number of recording layers, and the inter-group distance between the plurality of recording layer groups is a predetermined number. The recording layer is longer than the maximum interlayer distance. Therefore, since spherical aberration is roughly corrected by spherical aberration coarse adjustment, it is possible to focus on any recording layer in the recording layer group without fine adjustment, and thereafter Focus jump to the target recording layer and fine adjustment of spherical aberration can be performed by fine adjustment of spherical aberration. This makes it possible to quickly access the target recording layer by performing focus jump. Become.

  Further, according to the optical recording medium drive device of the invention of claim 5 and the focus pull-in method of the invention of claim 11, spherical aberration coarse adjustment means for correcting by coarse adjustment of a plurality of recording layer groups, spherical aberration Spherical aberration fine adjustment means that corrects the image by fine adjustment in units of recording layers, so that spherical aberration is roughly corrected by the spherical aberration coarse adjustment means. Focus can be drawn to any recording layer in the group, and then the focus can be jumped to the target recording layer and spherical aberration can be finely adjusted by the spherical aberration fine adjustment means. The target recording layer can be quickly accessed by performing a focus jump.

It is a figure which shows a multilayer optical disk as an Example of this invention. It is a figure which shows the structure of the optical disk drive device as an Example of this invention. 3 is a flowchart showing a control operation when accessing a target recording layer of an optical disc in the apparatus of FIG. It is a figure which shows the structure of the optical disk drive device as another Example of this invention. It is a figure which shows the structure of the optical disk drive device as another Example of this invention. It is a figure which shows the structure of the optical disk recording device as another Example of this invention. It is a figure which shows the structure of the optical disk reproducing | regenerating apparatus as another Example of this invention.

(First embodiment)
Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

  FIG. 1 shows a read-only optical disc 10 having a plurality of recording layers as an embodiment of the optical recording medium of the present invention. The optical disk 10 has a laminated structure including a glass substrate 1, four recording layer groups G0 to G3, an intergroup intermediate layer (gap layer) 2 between the four recording layer groups G1 to G3, and a protective layer 3. ing. Each of the four recording layer groups G0 to G3 is a bundle in which 20 recording layers R0 to R19 are stacked. The thickness of the intermediate layer between the 20 recording layers R0 to R19 of each of the four recording layer groups G0 to G3 is two types to prevent interlayer interference, and is 10 microns and 14 microns. The total thickness of the intermediate layers of one recording layer group is 230 microns. The thickness of the intergroup intermediate layer 2 is 30 microns. If the thickness of the optical disc 10 is 1.2 mm as in the conventional case, the recording layer groups G0 to G3 are obtained, and the total number of recording layers is 80 layers. The format of data recorded as information on the recording layer is in accordance with Blu-ray Disc. The recording capacity per recording layer is 25 GB, and the total of 80 recording layers is about 2 TB.

  In each header area of the recording layers R0 to R19, an information address bit for storing the group number and an information address bit for storing the layer number in the group are formed.

  The protective layer 3 is formed on the recording layer group G3 and forms a disk surface on which laser light is incident. A penetrating clamp hole 4 is formed in the center of the optical disc 10.

  The number of recording layers in each of the recording layer groups G0 to G3 is 8 or more and 50 or less, and preferably 20 for example. The inter-group distance of the recording layer groups G0 to G3 may be at least twice the maximum interlayer distance of the recording layers R0 to R19 and not more than the thickness of the recording layer group.

  FIG. 2 shows the configuration of an optical disc drive apparatus that optically reproduces information from the optical disc 10 of FIG. This drive device includes a disk drive system, an optical system, and a signal processing system.

  The disk drive system has a structure in which the optical disk 10 is held by the clamp mechanism 6 and is rotated by the spindle motor 7.

  The optical system includes a light source 11, a collimator lens 12, beam splitters 13 and 14, a spherical aberration coarse adjustment plate 15, a beam expander 16, an objective lens 17, condenser lenses 15a, 15b, 18, and 19, a pinhole element 20, and Photodetectors 21 and 22 are provided.

  The light source 11 is a semiconductor laser element that emits a laser beam having a wavelength of 405 nm. The light source 11 is driven by a light source driving unit (not shown). The collimator lens 12 converts the laser beam emitted from the light source 11 into parallel light and supplies it to the beam splitter 13. The beam splitter 13 supplies the parallel laser beam supplied from the collimator lens 12 to the beam splitter 14 as it is, and the beam splitter 14 supplies the parallel laser beam supplied from the beam splitter 13 to the spherical aberration rough adjustment plate 15 as it is.

  The spherical aberration rough adjustment plate 15 is a plate-like optical element, and has a first plate to a third plate having three different plate thicknesses for stepping in the spherical aberration rough adjustment. The spherical aberration coarse adjustment plate 15 is movable in the vertical direction (arrow direction) with respect to the optical axis of the laser beam, and is configured to be driven in the vertical direction by an adjustment plate actuator (not shown). By this driving, any one of the three plate portions is in a state of transmitting the laser beam. The spherical aberration correction amount per stage of the first plate to the third plate is designed to be 260 microns in terms of the thickness of the recording medium.

  The beam expander 16 is a spherical aberration correction element for fine adjustment, and includes a concave lens 16a and a convex lens 16b. The concave lens 16a and the convex lens 16b are each driven in the optical axis direction by a beam expander actuator (not shown), and the spherical aberration can be corrected by adjusting the distance between the concave lens 16a and the convex lens 16b. The aberration correctable range of the beam expander 16 is 300 microns in terms of the thickness of the optical disc 10.

  The objective lens 17 is disposed between the beam expander 16 and the optical disc, and includes a focus actuator (not shown) for moving in the optical axis direction, and tracking for moving in the direction perpendicular to the optical axis. An actuator (not shown) is provided, and fine movement in the focus direction and tracking direction can be electrically controlled. The objective lens 17 focuses the laser beam from the beam expander 16 onto any one of the four recording layer groups G1 to G3 of the optical disc 10 by a focus actuator. Further, a light spot of the laser beam is positioned on the track of the one recording layer by a tracking actuator. The numerical aperture of the objective lens 17 is, for example, 0.85.

  The laser beam reflected by the recording layer of the optical disc 10 is supplied to the beam splitter 14 through the objective lens 17, the beam expander 16, and the spherical aberration coarse adjustment plate 15 in this order. The beam splitter 14 reflects a part of the returning laser beam from the spherical aberration coarse adjustment plate 15 and supplies it to the condenser lens 18, and supplies the other returning laser beam to the beam splitter 13 as it is. For example, a part of the return laser beam may be a p-polarized laser beam, and the other return laser beam may be an s-polarized laser beam. The beam splitter 13 reflects the supplied return laser beam and supplies it to the condenser lens 19.

  The condensing lens 18 condenses the laser beam from the beam splitter 14 on the light receiving surface of the photodetector 21 to form a spot there. The condensing lens 19 condenses the laser beam from the beam splitter 13 on the light receiving surface of the photodetector 22 through the pinhole element 20 to form a spot there. Each of the photodetectors 21 and 22 has, for example, a four-divided light receiving surface, and generates a voltage signal having a level corresponding to the received light intensity for each divided surface.

  The pinhole element 20 is provided to form a confocal optical system, and allows only the laser beam reflected from the focused recording layer to pass through the pinhole.

  The above optical system is movable in the radial direction of the optical disc 10 by a transfer drive unit (not shown).

  The signal processing system includes a disk rotation driver 31, signal processing units 32 and 33, a controller 34, a memory 35, an actuator driver 36, an aberration correction plate driver 37, and a beam expander driver 38.

  The disk rotation driver 31 rotates the optical disk 10 by driving the spindle motor 7 in response to a rotation command from the controller 34. The disk rotation driver 31 performs spindle servo control to rotate the optical disk 10 at a constant linear velocity.

  The signal processing unit 32 generates a focus error signal for the recording layer group according to the output signal of the photodetector 21. The signal processing unit 33 generates a focus error signal for the recording layer according to the output signal of the photodetector 22, and also generates a tracking error signal and a reproduction signal. For the generation of the focus error signal, for example, a known signal generation method such as an astigmatism method can be used.

  The controller 34 executes a control operation in accordance with the program and data stored in the memory 35, and generates a focus drive signal so that the focus error signal obtained from the signal processing unit 32 or 33 becomes zero level. Further, the tracking drive signal is generated so that the tracking error signal obtained from the signal processing unit 33 is at a zero level. Further, specific information necessary for reproduction of the disc 10 and the group number and layer number recorded in the header area are acquired according to the reproduction signal from the signal processing unit 33. The controller 34 generates a spherical aberration plate driving signal according to the recording layer group including the recording layer to be reproduced, and generates a beam expander driving signal according to the position of the recording layer to be reproduced in the recording layer group.

  The actuator driver 36 drives the focus actuator of the objective lens 17 in accordance with the focus drive signal from the controller 34, and moves the objective lens 17 in the optical axis direction so as to focus the laser beam, and any one recording layer. Connect the beam spot on top. The actuator driver 32 drives the focus actuator of the objective lens 17 in accordance with the tracking drive signal from the controller 34, moves the objective lens 17 in the radial direction of the optical disc 10 perpendicular to the optical axis, and applies the beam to the track of one recording layer. Follow along the spot.

  The aberration correction plate driver 37 drives the adjustment plate actuator of the spherical aberration rough adjustment plate 15 according to the spherical aberration plate drive signal from the controller 34 to determine the position of the spherical aberration rough adjustment plate 15. That is, any one of the first to third plates of the spherical aberration coarse adjustment plate 15 is selected and positioned in the optical path of the laser beam.

  The beam expander driver 38 drives the beam expander 16 in accordance with a beam expander drive signal from the controller 34 to change the distance between the concave lens 16a and the convex lens 16b, thereby diffusing and diffusing the laser beam toward the objective lens 17. The convergence is adjusted, and the condensing position of the laser beam on the optical axis is changed, thereby finely adjusting the spherical aberration for each recording layer.

  In the optical disc drive apparatus having such a configuration, when the optical disc 10 is mounted on the clamp mechanism 6, first, as shown in FIG. 3, a light emission drive command is generated to the light source drive unit and a laser beam is emitted to the light source 11. Let

  After the laser beam is emitted, the controller 34 reads the specific information about the optical disc 10 from the recording area of the innermost peripheral portion of the optical disc 10 through the signal processing unit 33, and acquires the structure information of the recording layer of the optical disc from the specific information. . Specific information includes the number of recording groups of the optical disc 10 and the number of recording layers for each recording layer group.

  Then, the controller 34 generates a spherical aberration plate drive signal so as to select the thickest first plate of the spherical aberration coarse adjustment plate 15 for spherical aberration coarse adjustment, thereby recording the innermost recording from the beam incident surface of the optical disc 10. Adjustment to a state suitable for reproducing the layer group G0 is performed. In addition, the beam expander drive signal is generated so that the distance between the concave lens 16a and the convex lens 16b of the beam expander 16 for fine adjustment of spherical aberration is set to a neutral position near half of the drive range. In this state, only the focus error signal for the innermost recording layer group G0 of the optical disc 10 is clearly detected from the signal processing unit 32.

  Next, the optical disk 10 is controlled to rotate at a constant linear velocity. At this time, since the focus drive signal is generated from the controller 34 based on the focus error signal obtained from the signal processing units 32 and 33, any of the recording layer groups G0 that are usually near the center of the innermost recording layer group by the focus pull-in operation. The focus of the laser beam is drawn into the recording layer. Note that if there is a recording layer with high reflectivity in the recording group due to manufacturing error or the like, focus may be drawn on the recording layer with high reflectivity. The focus error signal is not strong enough, and the distance between the recording layer groups is larger than the interlayer distance to provide a clear boundary. The focus will not be pulled into.

  Furthermore, since the tracking drive signal is generated from the controller 34 based on the tracking error signal from the signal processing unit 33, the tracking pull-in operation is performed and the tracking servo is closed. When signal reproduction is performed in this state, since the spherical aberration is not optimized and the signal quality is not sufficient, the controller 34 generates a beam expander drive signal so that the reproduction signal amplitude is maximized. Therefore, since the distance between the concave lens 16a and the convex lens 16b is adjusted by driving the beam expander 16, the spherical aberration is finely adjusted. As a result, the recording information such as the group number, layer number, and recorded information signal of the servo-closed recording layer can be acquired from the signal processing unit 33. If it is determined that a recording layer different from the target recording layer is being reproduced according to the acquired information, the focus is maintained until the target recording layer is reached in the same manner as in the existing optical disk drive device. The jump, fine adjustment of spherical aberration, and acquisition of recorded information are repeated.

  When performing a focus jump between the recording layer groups, first, the servo operations of the focus servo control and tracking servo control are canceled, and the steps of the spherical aberration coarse adjustment plate 15 are performed so that the controller 34 corresponds to the target recording layer group. The stepped optical plate is changed by generating a spherical aberration plate drive signal so as to select the optical plate (other than the first plate). As a result, the focus pull-in can be reproduced in any recording layer of the target recording layer group of the optical disc 10 without fine adjustment of the spherical aberration. Then, as in the conventional optical disc drive apparatus, focus pull-in, tracking servo close, and information acquisition are performed, and jumps between the recording layers are repeated with respect to the target recording layer.

  Therefore, in the above-described embodiment, since the spherical aberration is roughly corrected by selecting the stepped optical plate of the spherical aberration coarse adjustment plate 15 for spherical aberration coarse adjustment for each recording layer group, fine adjustment is performed. Even if it is not, it is possible to focus the recording layer somewhere in the recording layer group. After that, a short jump focus jump is performed on the target recording layer, and then the spherical aberration is finely adjusted by the spherical aberration fine adjustment beam expander 16 so that the target recording layer is quickly subjected to the focus jump. Access performance can be improved.

  Since no recording layer is provided in a region where high-order spherical aberration occurs at both ends of the recording layer group of the optical disc 10, the spherical aberration of each recording layer of the recording layer group can be corrected appropriately.

  Since there is a wide gap layer between the recording layer group and between the recording layers belonging to the same recording layer group, the focus jump can be performed without adjusting the spherical aberration. Thus, it is possible to prevent the focus jump from being accidentally made to the recording layer belonging to the recording layer group different from the target, and the access performance can be improved.

(Modification of the first embodiment)
FIG. 4 shows another embodiment of the optical disk drive apparatus of the present invention. 4 includes a beam splitter 13, a condensing lens 19, a pinhole element 20, a photodetector 22, and a signal processing unit 33 in the confocal optical system in the optical disk drive apparatus of FIG. 2. Other configurations are the same. In the optical disk drive device of FIG. 4, the signal processing unit 32 generates a focus error signal, a tracking error signal, and a reproduction signal in accordance with the output signal of the photodetector 21. Using this focus error signal, tracking error signal, and reproduction signal, the controller 34 performs the same control operation as in the apparatus of FIG. Since the confocal optical system is not provided, the SN ratio of the focus error signal is reduced, but there is an advantage that the optical system can be downsized.

(Second embodiment)
As the optical disk of the present invention, an optical disk having a recording layer in which a very small hologram is recorded in a spiral shape as a mark may be employed. For example, Robert R. McLeod, Andrew J. Daiber, Mark E. McDonald, Timothy L. Robertson, Timothy Slagle, Sergei L. Sochava and Lambertus Hesselink, "Microholographic multilayer optical disk data storage", Applied Optics, 44, 16, pp. 3197-3207, (2005), or Hirotaka Miyamoto, Hisayuki Yamatsu, Kimihiro Saito, Norihiro Tanabe, Toshihiro Horigome, Goro Fujita, Seiji Kobayashi and Hiroshi Uchiyama, "Direct Servo Error Signal Detection Method from Recorded Micro -Reflectors ", Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, 48, 03A054, (2009).

  A drive device for an optical disk using a hologram as a mark can be configured as shown in FIG. In this drive apparatus, in addition to the configuration of the optical disk drive apparatus in FIG. 2, a reflection optical system for generating interference light necessary for creating a hologram mark on the side opposite to the objective lens 17 side of the optical disk 10 is used. An objective lens 23, a projection lens 24, a recording / reproduction switching shutter plate 25, and a reflection plate 26 are provided. The controller 34 controls the position of the objective lens 23 in the optical axis direction and the disk radial direction, the position of the projection lens 24 in the optical axis direction, and the blocking of the recording / reproducing switching shutter plate 25. Note that the controller 34 performs the same control operation as in the apparatus of FIG.

  In each of the embodiments of the optical recording medium drive device described above, a beam expander is used as the spherical aberration fine adjustment means, but a transparent electrode is formed on a liquid crystal layer filled with liquid crystal having birefringence characteristics. An optical element that has been used may be used.

  Further, the number of the plurality of recording layer groups is not limited to four, and may be two or more recording layer groups.

  The present invention can be applied not only to an optical disk drive device but also to other devices such as a hard disk recording / playback device, an optical disk recording device, and an optical disk playback device including the optical disk drive device.

(Third embodiment)
FIG. 6 shows an optical disk recording apparatus for recording information on an optical disk. This apparatus is composed of a disk drive system and an optical system.

  The disk drive system has a structure in which the optical disk 50 is held by a clamp mechanism 51 and is rotated by a spindle motor 52.

  The optical system includes a light source 61, a collimator lens 62, a light modulator 63, a light intensity attenuator 64, a dichroic mirror 65, a coarse adjustment spherical aberration corrector 66, a fine adjustment spherical aberration corrector 67, and an objective lens 68.

  The light source 61 emits a titanium sapphire laser having a wavelength of 782 nm, a pulse width of 65 fsec, and an average intensity of 620 mW. This laser light is converted into parallel light using a collimator lens 62 and then intensity-modulated using an optical modulator 63 according to recording data. The optical modulator 63 is controlled by a computer 72 via a modulator driver 71. The intensity-modulated laser light is adjusted to a desired intensity by an attenuator 64 for light intensity adjustment, and then the optical path is bent by a dichroic mirror 65 that reflects the 782 nm laser light, and a spherical aberration corrector 66 for coarse adjustment and The light enters the objective lens 68 through the fine adjustment spherical aberration corrector 67. The coarse adjustment spherical aberration corrector 66 includes a spherical aberration coarse adjustment plate 66a and front and rear condensing lenses 66b and 66c. The fine adjustment spherical aberration corrector 67 is a beam expander including a concave lens 67a and a convex lens 67b.

  The objective lens 68 is a dry objective lens having a numerical aperture of 0.75 and a magnification of 40 times. The laser light incident on the objective lens 68 is condensed by the lens 68 onto one of the recording layers formed in multiple layers in the optical disc 50. The recording layer is switched by scanning the objective lens 68 in the optical axis direction by the piezo actuator 69. The piezo actuator 69 is controlled by a computer 72 via a piezo driver 73. Further, the track is switched by scanning the entire spindle motor 52 holding the optical disk 50 using a computer-controlled translation stage 53. Therefore, rotation information of the spindle motor 52 is supplied from the spindle motor controller 54 that controls the rotation speed of the spindle motor 52 to the computer 72.

  In addition, a laser displacement meter 74 is installed on the lower surface of the optical disk 50 in order to measure the surface blur of the disk accompanying the rotation of the optical disk 50 and optimally control the focus state of the laser beam, and Measure the position. After the signal from the laser displacement meter 74 is processed by the computer 72, the piezoelectric actuator 73 is controlled to perform focusing. The spherical aberration correction method by the coarse adjustment spherical aberration corrector 66 and the fine adjustment spherical aberration corrector 67 is the same as in the other embodiments, and therefore, the description of the operation is omitted here.

  FIG. 7 shows an optical disk reproducing apparatus for reading recorded information from the optical disk 50. This reproducing apparatus is composed of a disk drive system, an optical system, and a signal processing system.

  Similar to the recording optical system, the disk drive system has a structure in which the optical disk 50 is held by the clamp mechanism 81 and is rotated by the spindle motor 82.

  The optical system includes a light source 91, a collimator lens 92, a light intensity attenuator 93, a dichroic mirror 94, a coarse adjustment spherical aberration corrector 95, a fine adjustment spherical aberration corrector 96, an objective lens 97, a notch filter 98, and a condenser lens. 99, a pinhole 100, and a photodetector 101.

  The light source is a laser resonator using a second harmonic (wavelength 532 nm, intensity 100 mW) of an Nd: YAG laser. The laser light emitted from the laser resonator is converted into parallel light by the collimator lens 92 and then adjusted to a desired intensity by the light intensity attenuator 93. Thereafter, the laser light is incident on a dichroic mirror 94 that reflects green light of 532 nm. The laser beam reflected by the dichroic mirror 94 is guided to the objective lens 97 via the coarse adjustment spherical aberration corrector 95 and the fine adjustment spherical aberration corrector 96. The coarse adjustment spherical aberration corrector 95 includes a spherical aberration coarse adjustment plate 95a and condensing lenses 95b and 95c before and after the spherical aberration coarse adjustment plate 95a. The fine adjustment spherical aberration corrector 96 is a beam expander composed of a concave lens 96a and a convex lens 96b.

  The objective lens 97 condenses the incident laser light on one of the recording layers inside the multilayer optical disc 50. The objective lens 97 is a dry system objective with a numerical aperture of 0.75 and a magnification of 40 times. When the optical disk 50 is irradiated with a green laser, orange (center wavelength 580 nm) rhodamine B fluorescence is generated from the portion where information is recorded by irradiation with the titanium sapphire laser. This fluorescence is collected again using the same objective lens 97, passes through the dichroic mirror 94, and is then collected on the pinhole 100 via the notch filter 98 and the condenser lens 99. A notch filter 98 for removing green laser light transmitted through the dichroic mirror 94 is installed between the pinhole 100 and the dichroic mirror 94. Further, as the pinhole 100, a metal pinhole having a diameter of 4 μm or a single mode fiber having a core diameter of 4 μm is used.

  The fluorescence signal transmitted through the pinhole 100 is received by the photodetector 101, processed by the signal processing circuit 102, and then measured by the computer 103. Similar to the recording optical system, the recording layer to be reproduced is switched by scanning the objective lens 97 in the optical axis direction using the piezo actuator 104 controlled by the computer. The piezo actuator 104 is controlled by the computer 103 via the piezo driver 105. The track switching using the translation stage 106 and the measurement of the position of the optical disc with respect to the objective lens accompanying the surface shake of the disc using the laser displacement meter 107 are the same as in the recording optical system. Note that rotation information of the spindle motor 82 is supplied from the spindle motor controller 108 that controls the rotation speed of the spindle motor 82 to the computer 103. The spherical aberration correction method by the coarse adjustment spherical aberration corrector 95 and the fine adjustment spherical aberration corrector 96 is the same as that of the other embodiments described above, and thus the description of the operation is omitted.

6 and 7 is a multilayer disk having a structure in which recording layers and intermediate layers are alternately stacked. PVA (Ploy vinyl alcohol) is used for the intermediate layer. The recording layer is made of PMMA doped with Au ³⁺ and fluorescent dye rhodamine B. In an unrecorded state, Au ³⁺ and rhodamine B are present in PMMA. Rhodamine B absorbs light having an excitation wavelength of 560 nm and emits fluorescence having a wavelength of 580 nm. However, when Au ³⁺ is present, rhodamine B does not emit fluorescence because energy transfer occurs from rhodamine B to Au ³⁺ . Here, when the recording laser is irradiated, gold ions are photoreduced into gold fine particles by a photochemical reaction, and a recording mark is formed. Next, when irradiated with regenerative light, Au ³⁺ is changed to gold fine particles, so energy transfer from rhodamine B is lost, and fluorescence is enhanced by local surface plasmon resonance of the gold fine particles. To emit. Using this principle, marks are recorded and reproduced.

Claims (11)

A multilayer optical recording medium having a large number of recording layers,
The multiple recording layers constitute a plurality of recording layer groups each consisting of a predetermined number of recording layers,
A gap layer is formed between the plurality of recording layer groups,
The multilayer optical recording medium, wherein a distance between groups of the plurality of recording layer groups, which is a thickness of the gap layer, is longer than a maximum interlayer distance of the predetermined number of recording layers.   2. The multilayer according to claim 1, wherein a distance between the groups of the plurality of recording layer groups is at least twice as large as a maximum interlayer distance of the predetermined number of recording layers and not more than a thickness of the recording layer group. Optical recording medium.   2. An information address bit for storing a group number and an information address bit for storing a layer number in the group are formed in a header area of each of the plurality of recording layers. Multi-layer optical recording medium.   The multilayer optical recording medium according to claim 1, wherein the predetermined number is 8 or more and 50 or less.   Spherical aberration correction optics that performs coarse adjustment of spherical aberration in units of the plurality of recording layers and fine adjustment of spherical aberration in units of the recording layers to an optical system that irradiates the multilayer optical recording medium with laser light for recording or reproduction. The multilayer optical recording medium according to claim 1, wherein the multilayer optical recording medium is used in an optical recording medium drive apparatus having a system. A plurality of recording layers each of which constitutes a plurality of recording layer groups each including a predetermined number of recording layers, a gap layer is formed between the plurality of recording layer groups, and the thickness of the gap layer The inter-group distance of the plurality of recording layer groups is a drive device having an optical system for irradiating a recording or reproducing laser beam to a multilayer optical recording medium that is longer than the maximum interlayer distance of the predetermined number of recording layers,
The optical system includes spherical aberration coarse adjustment means for correcting spherical aberration by coarse adjustment in units of the plurality of recording layer groups, and spherical aberration fine adjustment means for correcting spherical aberration by fine adjustment in units of the recording layers. An optical recording medium drive device.   The spherical aberration coarse adjustment means is composed of an optical element whose optical path length changes stepwise, or an optical element whose refractive index can be adjusted stepwise, and the spherical aberration fine adjustment means is an expander composed of at least one pair of optical lenses. 7. The optical recording medium drive device according to claim 6, comprising a lens or an optical element in which a transparent electrode is formed on a liquid crystal layer filled with a liquid crystal having birefringence characteristics.   Focus pull-in to each of the plurality of recording layer groups is performed only by the spherical aberration coarse adjustment unit, and after the focus jump to the recording layer in the plurality of recording layer groups, the spherical aberration is adjusted using the spherical aberration fine adjustment unit. The optical recording medium drive apparatus according to claim 6, wherein an optimum correction is performed.   Focus servo control for each of the plurality of recording layer groups is performed by a low resolution optical system, and focus servo control, tracking servo control, and reproduction signal acquisition for each recording layer in the plurality of recording layer groups are performed by a high resolution optical system. 7. The optical recording medium drive device according to claim 6, wherein   10. The optical recording medium drive device according to claim 9, wherein the high resolution optical system is a confocal optical system having a pinhole element. A plurality of recording layers each comprising a plurality of recording layer groups each including a predetermined number of recording layers, a gap layer being formed between the plurality of recording layer groups, the thickness of the gap layer being A focus pulling method for a drive device having an optical system for irradiating a recording or reproducing laser beam to a multilayer optical recording medium in which the inter-group distance of the plurality of recording layer groups is longer than the maximum interlayer distance of the predetermined number of recording layers Because
The focus pull-in to each of the plurality of recording layer groups is performed only by the spherical aberration coarse adjustment unit, and after the focus jump to the recording layer in the plurality of recording layer groups, the spherical aberration fine adjustment unit is used to optimize the spherical aberration. A focus pull-in method characterized by performing correction.

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